Good News Story for Aboriginal Model Samantha Harris

This week 400 volunteers from Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii will take part in Australian Fashion Week in the hope of meeting and learning from the fashion industry's most powerful players. For many, the hope of entering the competitive world of fashion starts here – and it’s not just designers. Australian Fashion Week provides the perfect training ground for public relations students, journalists in training, communications and media students, and anyone interested in event management and
promotions to get involved and strut their stuff.

Amidst all the excitement however, some pretty serious stuff is going on. Take for example the good news story about Aboriginal model Samantha Harris.  Megan Baldwin of www.styleite.com writes:

‘. . . the fashion industry is currently in the midst of a pretty serious discussion. . . . it seems to be extending beyond surface questions about size. Everyone from designers to models and even editors are starting to ask whether the industry’s core and often exclusionary representations of beauty are in need of some serious revisions. Our answer: yes.

But for sure, the debate isn’t limited to the fraught pages of our American glossies. See Vogue India’s recent covering of their nation’s struggle to equate dark with beautiful. More, consider, the news out of Sydney that Aboriginal model Samantha Harris will walk for no less than 18 designers during Australian Fashion week. On first glance, you might think, what’s the big deal? At 19, the former pageant girl is beyond striking with exotic, doll-like features, lips to die for and a portfolio that includes an appearance on the cover of Australian Vogue — why wouldn’t designers be vying for her?

But in Australia, a continent with a long legacy of tortured relations, empty promises and unrealized plans for “reconciliation” with its indigenous peoples, this is definitely big.’

. . . love to hear your thoughts.